Friday, September 22, 2017

Soup. It's What's For Dinner.

(Original Post Date October 2012)I don't have anything particularly clever to blog about today... feeling kinda tired & calorie deprived. I have a love/hate relationship with the "Hunger Games" fitness challenge I'm currently competing in. On the hate side: 1420 calories a day & a ton of exercise during the holidays is making me the teensiest bit cranky. On the love side: This challenge makes me feel good most days. Fitting into my clothes and recognizing the fact that my bad eating habits could be the death of me, is a good thing. Love/hate. I refer to it most days as "My Stupid Calorie Challenge." I think the worst part is that my children have turned into the calorie police. Andrew said to me the other day at Brick Oven Pizza: "Mom, you're getting a lot of calories!"

Thanks son.

Fall and Winter, or as I like to call them: "Comfort Food Seasons", are my favorite. I can explain my current crankiness best by describing it thus: I want to eat four bowls of soup, not one. Self control is not one of my better qualities :) I'm working on it. Stupid calorie challenge.

Monday is soup night at our house during Comfort Food Season. It's the best night of the week! I thought I would share some of our most loved recipes with you over the next few months... sound good? Not every Monday mind you, just when I get two free seconds to take pictures of my food before inhaling it... and another two free seconds (two hours) to blog about it.

Today I want to share "my" recipe for Easy Peasy Chicken Noodle Soup. I call it "mine" because I've tweaked the original version so much it's silly. My favorite food.com contributor is MizzNezz. Her recipes never fail me. Ever. This is her chicken noodle soup recipe, and I want to give her proper credit. The original recipe is here. It is the highest rated chicken noodle soup recipe on food.com, and deservedly so. You really must check out her other stuff as well... she's great :)

Easy Peasy Instructions: Throw almosteverything (butter, celery, onion, thyme, poultry seasoning, chicken broth, bouillon, 2 raw chicken breasts, but NOT the noodles) in the crock pot & cook on low all day (4 hours on high). Remove chicken, chop, put back in pot. Add egg noodles, and let cook for 15- 20 minutes longer on low. Do NOT let the noodles cook for too long... you will have mush for dinner instead of yummy delicious soup. Learn from my mistake. Serve with a loaf of Rhodes Bake & Serve bread that you set out to thaw when you started the soup! There's no shame in doing that once in a while.

Here are even more shortcuts with the crock pot:

- Use frozen chicken breasts. Just throw them right in the pot. Easy!

- Chop a TON of celery and carrots the first time you make this soup. Put a cup of carrots & a cup of celery in a quart size freezer Ziplock. Freeze for later use. Throw them in the crock pot frozen. They cook up just like fresh. Again, so easy!

No seconds of soup for you.

Now go ahead... let's see if you can eat just one bowl of this heavenly soup & not be cranky. You're gonna want three more bowls sista... it's THAT good :) Happy Monday!

2 comments:

I made it for my family Christmas party tonight! So easy and very yummy. My sister in law made some noodle soup a couple of hours early for the party and she couldn't figure out why her noodles were so mushy. I told her what you said about not putting the noodles in until the very end. She thought that was good to know! :)

Thoroughly In Earnest...

My motto in life comes from my favorite book, David Copperfield, written by Charles Dickens. In chapter forty-two he writes:

"My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest."

This blog is a place for me to share whatever it is I’m currently in earnest about. Whether it be recipes, craft projects, or geeking out, I hope that you will thoroughly enjoy it as much as I do!

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"My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest."— Charles Dickens